Ethan Couch, who as a 16-year-old driver drunkenly struck and killed four pedestrians but dodged prison after suggesting at trial that his irresponsibility was a result of his entitled upbringing, walked free Monday after serving almost two years in a Texas jail on a probation violation.
FILE - In this Feb. 19, 2016, file photo, Ethan Couch is led to a juvenile court for a hearing in Fort Worth, Texas. Couch, who used an "affluenza" defense in a fatal drunken-driving wreck in 2013, was released from jail Monday, April 2, 2018, after serving nearly two years for a revoked probation. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
Couch, 20, was released from the Tarrant County jail near Dallas on Monday morning, according to Tarrant County sheriff's spokesman David McClelland, who provided no other details. It was not immediately clear where Couch went after leaving jail.
The group Mothers Against Drunk Driving issued a statement calling Couch's short stint in jail "a grave injustice to the victims and their families who have been dealt life sentences because of one person's devastating decision to drink and drive."
Couch was found to have a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit for adult drivers after the crash in June 2013. He subsequently was charged with manslaughter.
A psychologist at trial blamed the teen's irresponsibility on his family's wealth, dubbing it "affluenza." A juvenile court sentenced him to 10 years of probation. That probation was revoked in 2016 after he attended a party where alcohol was served then fled to Mexico with his mother to avoid punishment.
Ethan Couch, right, leaves Tarrant County Corrections Department in Fort Worth, Texas as his attorney is interviewed Monday, April 2, 2018.(Bob Booth)/Star-Telegram via AP)
Couch's attorneys, Scott Brown and Reagan Wynn, issued a statement Monday saying Couch has always been sorry for what he did.
"From the beginning, Ethan has admitted his conduct, accepted responsibility for his actions, and felt true remorse for the terrible consequences of those actions," they said, adding that he will serve the remaining six years of his community supervision under the terms imposed by the court.
Those terms include wearing a tracking device, sticking to a 9 p.m. curfew and taking regular drug tests, a court filing shows. Couch, who turns 21 next week, is prohibited from drinking alcohol while he is on probation.
Couch lost control of his family's pickup truck in 2013 after he and his friends had played beer pong and drank beer stolen from a Wal-Mart. He veered into a crowd of people helping the driver of a disabled vehicle on the side of the road. Authorities later estimated that he was going 70 mph in a 40 mph zone.
Ethan Couch, right, is released from Tarrant County Corrections Department in Fort Worth, Texas as his attorney is interviewed Monday, April 2, 2018. (Bob Booth/Star-Telegram via AP)
The crash fatally injured the stranded motorist, a youth minister who stopped to help her and a mother and daughter who came out of their nearby home.
Couch's mother, Tonya Couch, is in jail awaiting trial on charges of hindering apprehension of a felon and money laundering arising from when she fled to Mexico with her son in 2015. Fred Couch, Ethan's father, was sentenced in December 2016 to a year's probation for falsely identifying himself as a peace officer. He has not commented publicly on his son's release.
HOUSTON (AP) — A judge has recommended that the conviction and death sentence of Melissa Lucio, a Texas woman whose execution was delayed in 2022 amid growing doubts she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter, should be overturned amid findings that evidence in her murder trial was suppressed.
Senior State District Judge Arturo Nelson on Friday approved an agreement between prosecutors and Lucio’s attorneys that found the suppressed evidence, including witness statements from Lucio’s children and a report by Child Protective Services, would have corroborated Lucio’s defense that her daughter Mariah died of a head injury sustained in an accidental fall down a steep staircase two days before her death.
“She would not have been convicted in light of the suppressed evidence,” according to the 33-page agreement between the office of Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz and Lucio’s attorneys.
Nelson’s recommendation has been sent to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which will make the final decision on whether Lucio’s conviction and death sentence are overturned. There was no timetable for a ruling by the appeals court. Lucio’s case has become a cause célèbre among people, including Kim Kardashian.
“We hope and pray the Court of Criminal Appeals will agree with the District Attorney, the defense, and Judge Nelson and our mother can come home to her family. It’s been 17 years that we have been without her. We love her and miss her and can’t wait to hug her,” Lucio’s children said in a statement Monday.
The agreement on findings in Lucio’s case had remained in limbo for 16 months before another judge, Gabriela Garcia. On April 5, Lucio’s lawyers and Saenz had issued a joint public statement in which they discussed that the findings were still under review by Garcia.
On April 10, Missy Medary, the presiding judge for the Fifth Administrative Judicial Region in South Texas, assigned Nelson to address the pending findings in the case. Nelson, who is a retired judge and had presided over Lucio’s 2008 trial, approved the findings two days later.
Garcia's court had requested that Nelson be assigned “to address the pending findings and conclusions as he was the trial judge in the case and has direct knowledge of the trial,” Emily Jirovec, an administrative assistant with the Fifth Administrative Judicial Region, said in an email Tuesday.
Lucio, 55, had been set for lethal injection in April 2022 for the 2007 death of her daughter in Harlingen, a city of about 71,000 in Texas’ southern tip. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted her lethal injection two days before her scheduled execution so Lucio’s claims that new evidence would exonerate her could be reviewed.
Before the agreed findings approved by Nelson, prosecutors had long maintained Mariah was the victim of abuse and noted her body was covered in bruises.
Lucio’s case has garnered support from Kardashian and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody.
“Melissa Lucio has been in jail for more than a decade and a half, which is an unimaginable injustice, but one that can at least be undone,” Moody said in a post Tuesday on the social platform X.
Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70
FILE - This undated booking photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Melissa Lucio. A judge has recommended that the conviction and death sentence of Lucio, a Texas woman whose execution was delayed in 2022 amid growing doubts she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter, should be overturned amid findings that evidence in her murder trial was suppressed. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP, File)
FILE - Esperanza Treviño, Melissa Lucio's mother, pleas to the public as she is surrounded by family and friends on the steps of the Cameron County Courthouse Administrative entrance in Brownsville, Texas, Feb. 7, 2022, that her daughter is innocent and was wrongfully sentenced to death for the murder of Lucio's 2-year-old daughter. A judge has recommended that the conviction and death sentence of Lucio, a Texas woman whose execution was delayed in 2022 amid growing doubts she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter, should be overturned amid findings that evidence in her murder trial was suppressed. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald via AP, File)
